DICEBOX ISLAND SERIES
The mist parted, and at the top of a large tree we could see the nest, the eaglet staring down at us.įor the rest of the morning we zigzagged through a series of narrow passageways adjacent to Jarvis Island and into Jaques Lagoon. We approached the Tiny Group, a medley of islets arranged like broken pieces of a plate dropped on the floor, and it was only then that the shriek of an eaglet cut through the mesmeric calm. We launched mid-morning, and as we slid between Walsh and Chalk Islands, pin-drop silence embraced us.
We pitched camp at Dodd Island late that first afternoon, and when we rose on our second day the sea fog had returned, blanketing the campsite. The holy-crap strap is reserved for those occasions when you find yourself suddenly upside down in the water, staring at the back end of a moon snail trying to make its escape. After trying to extricate it with her paddle for our viewing pleasure, she succeeded first in demonstrating the effective use of her holy-crap strap. Tallina, one of our guides, spotted a giant moon snail oozing along in four feet of water. We found a sunflower star the size of a large frying pan, with 21 arms and thousands of tiny tentacles, propelling itself at warp speed (for a sea star) across the ocean floor. There are dozens of narrow passageways and tidal lagoons to explore where bat stars and sea cucumbers, purple urchins and teal-colored anemones congregate. Still, that shouldn’t dissuade paddlers from visiting, for there is nothing else quite like it on the West Coast. I counted two dozen kayaks departing from Toquart Bay as we were preparing to leave. The Broken Group are something of a paddling mecca, so kayakers shouldn’t expect to find complete solitude. Long Beach is the most famous surfing beach in Canada and is located just north of Ucluelet. The Broken Group are part of Pacific Rim National Park, which is perhaps best known for the West Coast Trail, a multi-day backpacking trail that runs along the coastline south of Bamfield.
This was the first day of a four-day trip into the heart of the Broken Group Islands, a shattered jigsaw puzzle of rocky islands and islets that sits adrift between Bamfield and Ucluelet on the west coast of Canada’s Vancouver Island. There were 10 of us in the group, from places as far away as Scotland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. I guess when several hundred pounds of barking blubber is concerned, it pays to keep your distance. “Those particular paddlers had to be rescued after the sea lion tipped their kayak over.” Yes, paddlers may be enamored of these charismatic sea creatures, but apparently the feeling is not always reciprocated. “You don’t want to get too close to sea lions because you never know what they’re going to do,” Robert warned me. I had heard the story from one of our guides.
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